


Memories

by little_wayward_bird



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Heroes in Crisis (DCU Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Brotherly Bonding, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canon Divergence - comic books, Drinking, Jason Todd Has Feelings, Language, Light Angst, Mention of Character Death, Wally West and Roy Harper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:02:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_wayward_bird/pseuds/little_wayward_bird
Summary: Dick is holding up okay after the deaths of Wally and Roy, but Jason hasn’t been heard from since Bruce told him about Roy, and to add to that, it's only been a couple months since Bizarro and Artemis disappeared. Dick decides to find him to make sure he's okay.
Relationships: Artemis of Bana-Mighdall & Bizarro (DCU) & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Wally West, Roy Harper & Jason Todd
Kudos: 85





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> (After Heroes in Crisis, Ric doesn’t exist yet, and a canon divergence from RHATO where Jason wasn’t exiled from Gotham and is on relatively good terms with the family, and Bruce didn’t beat him to near death but rather was a good parent who just talked to him after the thing with the Penguin)

_Here's to the ones that we got_   
_Cheers to the wish you were here, but you're not_   
_'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories_   
_Of everything we've been through_

Dick sat on the roof of his building and looked out at the city. The sun was just starting to set but he didn’t know if he was going to go out tonight. It had only been a few weeks since the incident at the Sanctuary but it’s hard to move past the death of your life long best friend. Wally needed help, all those heroes did, but instead, they’re all dead. Wally was dead. Kid Flash, the best friend Dick ever had. He knew he would be okay, but every so often, for a moment, Dick couldn’t help but think about him. And on top of that, Roy was gone too. They'd had their ups and downs as friends, but at the end of the day, they were almost as close as he and Wally were.

Maybe if he went on patrol it would clear his mind, let him blow off some emotional energy.

Dick looked down beside him at his phone as it began vibrating with a call. It was Bruce.

“Hey B, what’s up?” He greeted casually.

“Hey Dick, how are you holding up?” Bruce asked sincerely. He’s been checking in every few days. He knew how close they were.

“I’m alright.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” Bruce paused for a moment which told Dick it wasn’t the main reason he called. “Have you heard from Jason lately?”

Dick furrowed his brows. “No. Is he back in Gotham? I thought he was still searching for Artemis and Bizarro.”

“He was, with no sign of them anywhere. He just got back a couple days ago. But, I haven’t heard from him since. Not even Red Hood has been out.”  
  
“What happened?”

“Well, a few hours after he got back, I broke the news to him- about Roy.”

“Oh,” Dick mumbled. He couldn’t imagine what Jason was going through right now. Dick had lost two of his closest friends, but to lose three of the closest, and only, friends Jason had, in such a short period of time, was awful. Dick never felt alone after it happened, he had so many around him grieving and supporting each other. But Jason, after Biz and Artemis, he pushed himself away looking, though teamed up with Roy somewhere in there. He probably felt really alone right now.

“I’ve asked the others, but no one has heard from him. I’m just worried he’s not taking it well.”

Dick nodded to himself. “Probably not, especially since only about two months have passed since Artemis and Bizarro disappeared.”

Bruce sighed. “Right.”

“Tell you what, Bruce; I was thinking of taking the night off anyway. I’ll see if I can find him.”

“Okay. Let me know if you do, and if he’s in bad shape or anything.”

“Will do, B.”

“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow, Dick. And you’re telling the truth, you’re doing okay? I know with Wally…”

Dick smiled a little. “I’m okay, B. Better than I was two weeks ago.”

“Good. Good luck with Jason. I hope you can find him, without invading his privacy, which is why I haven’t found him.”

Dick snorted. “Right. Talk to you later, Bruce. Bye.”

The call ended then. Dick opened his phone and clicked on the app ‘Find My’ to see where Jason’s phone was. Jason willingly allowed this connection so it’s not really invading his privacy, especially since it’s out of worry. It didn’t take long.

Jason was a few miles away in a bar in the Narrows, Noonan’s. That didn’t really surprise him. Dick stood up and headed back inside to put on fresh clothes and some shoes, then headed to the bar.

When he walked in, he saw it wasn’t that busy despite that it was getting dark now. There were just like half a dozen tables taken. And along the back wall in a booth was his first little brother. He was hunched over the table, elbows on it and hands locked above his head. There were two glasses on the table; one was full and across from Jason, the other had about one fourth left of beer in it.

Dick walked to his table but didn’t sit down. He figured Jason wouldn’t appreciate that.

“Hey, is this seat taken?” He asked politely. He wasn’t shocked that Jason didn’t recognize his voice.

“Yes, so fuck off,” he mumbled, not moving at all.

“I assume it’s for Roy,” he stated gently.

Jason lifted his head with deep set eyebrows, confused. Once he fully registered it was Dick in front of him, he looked back down at the table, mainly at Roy’s glass. But he gestured with one hand to tell Dick to sit. He smiled a little then sat in the booth opposite Jason, but at the end to keep the space respected for Roy.

“What are you doing here, Dick?” Jason asked tiredly, leaning back into the corner to face him. He looked exhausted.

“Well, I was sitting on my roof thinking about Wally and Roy, and I just felt like a needed drink.”

Jason picked up his glass with one hand and an amused huff. “And you decided to get that at one of the shadiest bars in the Narrows. This isn’t exactly your kind of scene, Big Bird.”

Dick nodded. “No. But I knew it was yours.”

Jason smirked a tiny bit and nodded. He took a sip then put the glass on table. “So, how are you doing with it all? I know you three were close.”

“I’m okay. I’ve had a few weeks to process.”

Jason huffed a little and picked up his glass again, just swirling the remainder of the beer around. “Right. You probably found out the day after it happened.”

Dick nodded once. “I did.”

Jason sighed then drained his glass. After he put it down on the table he waved at the bartender who semi waved back.

“How long have you been here?” Dick asked him after a minute.

Jason shrugged but the bartender answered for him as she brought his next drink over.

“He’s been here since about five. And Jason, this is your _seventh_ pint. I honestly don’t understand how you’re not even a little bit _tipsy_.”

Jason gave her a sideways smirk. “I’ve got a _really_ high tolerance.”

She rose a brow at him then sighed. “Clearly. Can I get anything for you?” She asked, looking at Dick.

“Two of whatever he’s drinking,” he answered.

“Alright. You trying to catch up to your friend?”

Jason snorted and sipped from his glass.

“Not exactly. And I’m actually his older brother.”

She smiled a bit. “Good, maybe you know the reasonable place to cut him off. I’ll be right back.” She picked up Jason’s empty glass and went back to the bar.

“Seventh pint?” Dick asked incredulously. “How high is your tolerance?”

“It’s infinite, unfortunately,” Jason grumbled.

“Because of the Lazarus Pit,” Dick realized, smiling sympathetically.

Jason kept the glass in his hand as he spoke. “Yeah. Another thing that stupid green fucking pit took from me.”

Dick cocked his head. “What? I thought it gave you more than it took?”

Jason snorted. “Well, to some people, not being able to get drunk would be considered a good thing. _I_ do not. The main thing it took from me was my sanity.”

“Right. But hey, you got that back. So, maybe you’ll get the ability to get drunk back, too,” Dick quipped in amusement.

“Yeah. If it is going to happen, RIGHT FUCKING NOW WOULD BE GREAT!” Jason replied loudly, lifting his glass into the air and looking at the ceiling. Everyone in the bar looked at him, shrugged then looked away. Dick just shook his head.

“What would be great right now?” The bartender, Dick now saw her name was Lisa, asked as she brought two pints to the table.

“Jason’s high tolerance going away,” Dick replied simply.

Lisa smiled a little. “Ah. I certainly understand why.” Her eyes trailed to the full glass of beer sitting on the table. “Well, here are your beers. Just wave me down if you need anything. Like something stronger if you’re really set on forgetting anything tonight.”

She put the glasses on the table then went back to the bar.

“So, you really can’t get drunk, like at all?” Dick grabbed the beers, pushed one to the opposite side of the table and brought the other closer.

Jason sighed heavily and shook his head. “Nope, not even tipsy. It’s fucking annoying. I’m 21 and I can’t even enjoy it. Not that age ever stopped me before but still.”

Dick laughed lightly. “Maybe you should try something stronger than beer.”

“Eh, tried that yesterday. Drank a whole bottle of scotch and nothing.”

His eyes raised in surprise. “Damn. What did Roy think about that little trick?”

Jason chuckled, smiling a bit for the first time since Dick sat down. “He was jealous. Not that he wanted to keep drinking but at the thought of never being able to really fall off the wagon again.” He looked to the beer now on the table beside him. “Wally?”

Dick sighed. “Yeah. I like the sentiment of it just being there, respecting what used to be.”

Jason nodded and vaguely pointed to the other glass. “Yeah. The funny thing is, even if Roy were here, he would have ordered that pint and just like now it would stay right there, untouched.”

“Seriously?”

“He said it was thing he’d do for his sobriety, order a drink and not touch it. He’d stayed on the wagon pretty much the whole time we were working together. It was impressive.”

Dick smiled at that, knowing of the time when Roy was very much off the wagon. “Good for him.”

Jason didn’t say anything for a moment, just fiddled with condensation on his glass. “He- he was on shaky ground the last time I saw him, which was for few a weeks before the whole sanctuary thing. He was helping me recover after what happened, with Penguin... Arte and Biz... and we were doing okay that couple weeks. Always able to help each other during shitty times. We started working a case when he told me he wanted to give ‘rehab for capes’ a try. _Needed_ to give it a try. He asked if I wanted to go with him.”

Dick knew what Jason was thinking. “Jay, even if you did, you wouldn’t have been able to do anything. Whoever did it, got every super there. You likely would have ended up the same as the others.” Dick knew it had been Wally which was another hard blow to process, but he's sure Jason doesn't know that yet, and Dick didn't want to tell him right now.  
  
“Yeah- yeah, I know. And it’s not like death is permanent. In our line of work it’s more like a revolving door. And I know he’d be pissed at me if I spent a lot of time moping over him. But, I feel like he can give me a few days for it.”

“Of course he would, Jason. Just like I know Wally would want me to remember him but to still live my life.”

Jason smirked and turned to rest his arms on the table. He grabbed his drink with his left hand. “They both deserved better.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Dick declared, lifting his glass toward Jason. Jason lifted his glass and tapped it with Dick’s. They sat in comfortable silence for a couple minutes, drinking and listening to the background chatter of the bar.

"So, you really found nothing about what happened to Artemis and Bizzaro?" Dick asked, gently.

Jason shook his head. "Nothing. It's like they just fell off the planet, off of the universe. I _know_ they're not dead, but I just can't-" Jason rubbed a hand over his eyes then straight through his hair. 

Dick hated seeing Jason like this, distressed and unsure. "Well, maybe they did fall out of the universe. Maybe they're in a different one. They did just vanish into nothingness right?"

Jason nodded, staring at the back of the booth seat in front of him. "Yeah, yeah that makes sense. It at least gives me another way to look for them."

Dick smiled at him. "Good. I know you'll find them. And I'm sure they know you're looking for them, while they try to punch their way out of wherever they are."

Jason smirked fondly, looking at the table now. "More than likely."

They fell into another moment of comfortable silence. Dick now noticed that the bar was gradually filling up with more people and growing louder.

“What was the craziest thing you and Wally ever did?” Jason asked suddenly.

Dick huffed in amusement but furrowed his brows as he thought for a moment; an old memory came to mind.

“Well, early in our Titans days when he still wore the yellow and I still wore the R, I snuck him into the batcave while Bruce was out, and uh, we took the batmobile for a joy ride.”

Jason burst out laughing. “Okay, that’s great. Almost as great as me stealing his tires.”

“Oh yeah, nothing can top that,” Dick agreed. “How about you and Roy?”

Jason huffed, smiling a bit brighter now. “God, I’ve got so many of us doing crazy shit, on a scale of crazy. First one that comes to mind is actually just Roy doing some crazy shit… he tried out his new flamethrower weapon on me, _while_ I was in the _shower_.” Jason paused as Dick started laughing. He could totally see Roy doing something like that. “Another thing, I was trying to stop the CIA from making a very poor decision in the Arizona desert, so I disguised myself as the senator making the deal, when out of nowhere Roy busts in and nearly ruins the whole thing. And that’s when we were kind of hired by the CIA to work for them, till Roy ruined that too.”

Dick chuckled. “As he does. And of course there’s the moment when you, him and Kori officially became the Outlaws. When you rescued him from execution, taking on a whole freaking army and getting away without a scratch.”

Jason’s smile saddened a little, looking down at the table. “Yeah, but that was mostly Kori with that last part. It was an insane mission though. You don’t even know the funniest part. To even get Roy out, I disguised myself as an overweight priest to get close to him, hiding his bow in the fake Bible I had and his quiver under the suit. Then I dropped the suit and we busted out firing everywhere, then Kori came and blew everything up, including a bunch of tanks.”

Dick smirked. “So, both times you started your team up with Roy, you had disguised yourself as somebody else?”

Jason laughed, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Dick laughed with him. After a moment they stopped and Dick spoke again. “You know, like you and Roy, Wally was always there when I needed him, even if he was across the country. And after he got back from the whole event with him being outside of time, he snuck into the tower looking for us. I got to him first and Wally tried to talk to me, using my name and trying to get through. But I couldn’t remember him so-”

“You attacked him?” Jason concluded for him, smirking a bit.

Dick huffed. “Yeah. But as soon as I made contact, he tased me. Like used the speed force to actually tase me. I was so shocked I didn’t realize my memories were back until after I shit on him for tasing me. He had to tase all of us to get us to remember. And after all that, I remember saying to him, ‘Don’t die anymore.’”

“Well, Wally’s come back once before. So, you never know. Roy and I used to joke about dying all the time. Mainly because I have died and it was just dry humor.”

“We definitely had different kinds of relationships with our best friends.”

“Kind of, in the way of interaction. But a team of supes, even mostly human supes, brings about a certain kind of relationship. One that’s caused us both to be sitting here, not crying about our loss, because death is a fleeting concept and is pretty much accepted as a consistent possibility in this line of work.”

“That's true. Our family has certainly experienced a lot of that, both parts of it, dying and coming back.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, no getting around it for our very human family of vigilantes.”

Dick chuckled, “We definitely don’t act like we’re human though. And nobody thinks we are.” Jason just laughed.

**

Jason was really glad Dick had come looking for him. He knew Dick had lost his best friend too, but he’d already had time. Doesn’t mean he still didn’t have things to get off his chest, just like Jason did. They stayed at Noonan’s for several more hours, till it was nearing eleven. While Jason reached eleven pints, Dick got through six and was a bit hammered. Jason decided to call it a night at that point. Lisa was highly amused at the fact it was Jason, the younger brother, having to cut off the older brother. But also very confused that Jason was completely unaffected by his drinks.

Jason knew they were a few miles from Dick’s place, so he found the car Dick had driven and piled him in the passenger seat. Jason will have to come back for his bike tomorrow. He practically had to carry Dick all the way to his bedroom where he unceremoniously dropped him on the bed.

Despite having all this time, Dick clearly still had a lot of pain weighing on him about Wally, Roy too. Jason was glad he could be of some help to his brother, even if he knew it had meant to be the other way around. Dick did help, a little. Jason felt more comfortable about moving on from the intense mourning of the loss of his three best friends. Dick reminded him that he still had his family.

Once Dick was on his bed, coat and shoes off and under his blankets, Jason left him in peace. But he knew he needed to stay to make sure Dick was okay in the morning. Jason grabbed the extra pillow and blanket from Dick’s bed and headed to the living room. As he did, a phone began to vibrate distantly. It wasn’t his own which was currently in his pocket. He checked Dick’s coat and found his. It was a call from Bruce.

Jason smirked a little and answered. “Hey B.”

There was a pause, then an answer. “Jason?”

“The one and only.”

“Oh, I guess Dick found you then.”

“I guess he did. Sorry for the lack of communication the past couple days. I just needed some time.”

“I understand, Jason. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I know with Artemis and Bizarro missing, learning about Roy…”

“Yeah, it’s been a lot. But, I’m doing alright now, I think. Dick showing up helped, helped us both.”

Bruce hesitated for a second. “Is he okay? I mean, you answered his phone-”

Jason chuckled as he turned off the hallway lights. “He’s fine. Kind of wasted but in bed to sleep it off. I’m staying here for the night to make sure he’s okay.”

“So, Dick’s wasted, but you’re not?” Bruce asked, sounding unsure.

He smirked. “I wish I could get wasted, tried like hell to the past two days, but I can’t.”

“Of course, right. So, you’re sure you’re okay?”

His smirk fell to a smile. “I promise, I’m alright. I mean, I could be better, but just give me a few months and a bunch of asses to kick and I’ll be right as rain.”

Bruce laughed a little. “Okay then. I’ll let you know on the second part.” He paused for a moment then spoke softer. “I really am so sorry about Roy, Jason.”

“Thanks. And thank you for telling me. It’s nice to know that, you know, you’re here for me. For Dick.”

“Of course, Jaylad. Let me know if you or Dick need anything.”

“I will. Thanks, B. I’ll see you tomorrow at Sunday dinner. If I can get Dick on his feet anyway.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow, chum.”

Jason smirked and hung up then placed the phone on the counter. He listened for a moment; Dick was snoring, that was good. Jason sighed, knocked off his shoes and crashed onto the couch. He reached back, turned off the lamp, casting the room in darkness, then pulled the blanket around him. As he closed his eyes, he was feeling more relaxed than he has in months, just having been able to talk with someone about what he’d lost. And Dick being one room over helped him actually sleep peacefully too.

_Toast to the ones here today_   
_Toast to the ones that we lost on the way_   
_'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories_   
_And the memories bring back, memories bring back you_


End file.
